Fashion Foul

"Please don't come inside of me," Emily said.

"I won't," Anand said. "I have very good control." He took his penis out and started masturbating. "I only do this for girls I like," Anand said as he ejaculated on her face.

Emily struggled to get a glass of wine to rinse the semen from her mouth then laid back limp on the bed.

The designer made a phone call on his cell while he fondled her. When he hung up, Anand climbed on her back and forced his penis inside of her, pressing Emily's face and body into the mattress. This time, he ejaculated inside of her.

Emily cleaned herself up.

To this day, she doesn't understand why she didn't run from the hotel room screaming for the police. She blamed herself and was ashamed to tell her parents that her "big break" was everything they feared. Anand Jon talked like they were in a relationship, like he loved her, like she was one in a million. When the designer invited Emily to come to New York for a big fashion event, the teenager stuffed down her fear and went, hoping to salvage something positive from the terrible encounter.

Instead, she was plunged deeper into the bizarre world of Anand Jon. She agreed to tell her story to warn other girls and encourage anyone who'd been abused to come forward.

The designer courted them with the help of his friends, family, photographers and business associates who looked the other way as Anand Jon surrounded himself with young women he cowed into silence.

Then, with amazing speed, everything crumbled. After an underage girl Anand Jon allegedly seduced went to the Beverly Hills police, the designer was arrested on March 6. Detectives seized his computers and other evidence. He had left a digital trail, having contacted girls by e-mail, IM, text messages and phone calls. According to one investigator, the number of victims could top 100 or more.

After Anand Jon's release on $1.3 million bail, more girls came forward. The 33-year-old designer—whose full name is Anand Jon Alexander—now faces 32 charges of sexual assault involving 12 girls; that includes three underage girls who were 14, 15 and 17, respectively, at the time of his alleged sexual contact with them.

Anand Jon has pleaded not guilty and has turned over his passport. His attorney Ronald Richards has told reporters that the sex was consensual, that he forced no one. He has accused the models of banding together to make up stories to get back at the designer because they didn't become famous.

Richards has offered the Mahatma Gandhi defense, saying that Anand Jon is so frail at 5-foot-4 and 130 pounds he would be unable to force himself on anyone. "Any girl would kick his butt," Richards told The New York Times. Anand Jon, however, has posted bare-chested photos of himself showing off his gym-buffed pecs.

Neither Anand Jon nor Richards returned repeated phone calls and e-mails requesting comment; neither did Anand's sister Sanjana. One business associate claims he confronted the designer after several models told him the designer was demanding blow jobs. Anand Jon ignored him.

After his arrest, models who knew Anand Jon flooded the Internet with stories of their encounters with him. In interviews with the Dallas Observer, about a dozen models, interns and assistants struggled to explain why they didn't report him to the police or their parents, or why many returned even after he'd coerced them into sex. Those are questions that Anand Jon's defense attorney will use against the models.

But is it all that hard to understand? Most of the models were young, sexually inexperienced and in a transition period of their life, such as trying to decide what to study in college or leaving home for the first time. Some were trying to make breaks with parents, to show that they could take care of themselves.

They describe being manipulated by a powerful, intelligent man who knew exactly how to play on their ambitions and insecurities about their bodies. He exploited their empathy and used it to entrap them. They, in turn, felt helpless in warding off his advances. Child abuse prosecutors call this "accommodation syndrome."